Justice can be a very perverse and easily manipulated entity. Genuine justice should follow a “golden rule;” it should be dispersed in proportion to its desire to be received. But this is hardly ever the case since we usually believe we deserve more justice than we receive. The oft-uttered expletive, “There ain’t no justice!” comes from one who thinks he/she’s been shortchanged.

You have taught us to trust each other with justice and fairness. The example of the life of a “just man” was important to You. Yet, historically, the greatest travesty of justice was the way You were treated. Where was the justice in mocking, scourging, buffeting, and spitting upon a man who’d done everything right and good and just for His whole life? Pilate may just as well have said, ‘What is justice?’ It seems likely that he was at least entertaining this thought.

In this world there will never be genuine justice because, just like love, we’re more interested in getting it than giving it; and, at the times we are forced to dispense it, we do so in a subjective and self-serving manner. If justice is fairness then it is true – There ain’t no justice!”For how is it fair that the wealth and abundance of this world is so unevenly distributed?

To accept the concept of justice is, at the same time, to embrace its ideal and all its faults. Ideally justice would mean that we are more concerned with the fairness with which others are treated than the fairness with which we are treated. Learning to accept injustice to ourselves for the sake of another, meekly and humbly, is the lesson of the cross. To be a “just man” one must be fair, honest and without guile in dealing with others. It is what one would want for oneself. Love demands justice.